Difference between SOAP and RESTful Web Service in Java

Though both SOAP and RESTful web services allows a client to query server for some information, but the way they are implemented and used is quite different. Main difference between SOAP and REST is that former provides an standard of communication between client, server and other parties and has restricted set of rules and format, while REST leverages ubiquity of HTTP protocol, in both client and servers, to allow them to communicate with each other regardless of their implementation. In short, getting data from a RESTful web service requires less headache then getting data from a SOAP web service. Since everybody is familiar with HTTP requests like GET or POST, its easy to understand and correlated how RESTful webservice are working and which URL of REST web service provides what kind of information. In SOAP, you need to understand lengthy WSDL document to find out right methods and right way to call them.